Marko’s Blog

The sickness returns

Oi… had felt that funny little feeling in my throat the last couple of days, was hoping it wasn’t what I thought it was… but I was wrong Got myself good and stuffed up again with another dose of allergy overload. Probably another sinus infection (joy). I’ve been sick off and on all year and it’s really starting to piss me off. I’m tempted to go see a doctor about this, but I really don’t wanna spend a bunch of money just for him to tell me what I already know, I’ve got a bloody sinus infection, and the best thing to do is take plenty of allergy medication and gets lots of rest… yay.

‘Course when you hafta work, it’s a lil’ hard to get a lotta rest. Especially since if I miss work, the place will undoubtedly fall apart on me while I’m gone, which makes me not sure how I will ever manage to take a vacation…

Anywho… being sick sucks, as previously mentioned before. But what doesn’t suck is Mass Effect. Been playing it for the last couple days, lots of fun… Just remember to save… ALOT… The PC version finally came out, and I have been enjoying it quite a bit, but there are a few bugs that are annoying, and sometimes you’ll just be going around la de dah having a good time, then out of nowhere you get thrown into a giant fire fight and BAM! one rocket to the chest, and you’re at the loading screen… fun times!

Anyway… gonna try to get another cup of tea in me before work, hopefully I can survive tonight…

Insomnia strikes again…

So… it’s 2:30 am. I hafta be up at 7:00 am so I can get ready in time for work at 9:00… awesome. I tried to go to bed early, I really did. I was in my bed at 10:30pm 4 hours ago, trying to sleep. After about two hours of tossing and turning, I gave up. Matt and Keri were in the living room watching some movies, so I decided to join them… lovely insomnia, I really hope I get at least *some* sleep tonight… seeing as Saturday are my longest days, and going 9 hours of really slow pharmacy work on no sleep… that’s just asking for me to fall asleep at work. YARG!

I think I need to get some more sleeping pills again

Meet the fudging Spartans

So… my media machine is starting to get quite a bit of use from the roomies. We’re usually watching a new movie every night that we’ve *ahem* ‘acquired’ through various means. Unfortanetly watching a new movie a night, you sometimes run out of decent movies to watch… as it turns out last night we ended up watching Meet the Spartans. The movie is bad, really bad. Really really really really bad. There are a couple of funny jokes, yes, a couple, but not nearly worth watching the whole thing… actually the funniest part was during the end credits, you could probably skip the whole movie and just watch that part, that would probably be a better experience.

As retaliation for her picking the Movie, Matt made Keri watch The 300 today, which was wrapping up when I got home from work. According to her watching Meet the Spartans first ruined the movie, and I nearly slapped myself in the face when she said she was waiting for the dancing scene to come up, though I’m hoping she was joking. You better have been joking Keri! OR ELSE!!!

In other news, joyously my Pharmacy Manager is back from vacation, thank god, no more Temp Pharmacists, and hopefully Jay can finally get some rest so we don’t work him to death. Poor guy has been working too hard. Oh and I hit one year at Wal-Mart this month… yay… 30 cent raise and a week of vacation time to figure out what to do with… not quite sure how I’m going to spend it though… hafta come up with an idea for a vacation. I’m thinking of going and visiting one of my fellow webcomicers I’ve met in my excursions int he webcomic biz, but not sure who would be worth poking the most… We’ll just hafta go and see…

Oh yeah, one more thing. I got a present in the mail, my Wagon Webcomic Battle Deck Zero. It features 6 cards from Roomies, which are rawr-tastic!

Here’s the cards:

You can preorder your deck now for like $10. I’ll post some pictures of me with my cards in a bit, once I dust off the ol’ digital camera.

Unquentiable frustrations…

(Frustrated post ahead, I’m really not emo, I swear!)

Do you ever just sort of feel… frustrated… with everything sometimes? Just seems to be one of those days for me, everything seemed to frustrate me. Everything from trying to find entertainment to working, unable to be satisfied with anything. Have been playing the new Penny Arcade game, then hit a nice brick wall thanks to a lovely bug caused by something that was meant to fix another bug… awesome! So I can’t get further along in the game anymore, which makes the last few hours I attempted playing it worthless… *sigh*

Off to work, and very frustrating day with a stand in pharmacist from another store. His name is Ira, he is really old, and while he means well, he has a few problems that get under my skin. #1 is he likes to do other shit that doesn’t need to be done right now instead of high priority things like… filling prescriptions that people are waiting for. That and he doesn’t put any labels on boxed stuff because he thinks they shouldn’t be labeled until after they pay, which just makes it take even longer to check somebody out… making even more damn delays…

Uhg… so come home, Keri is being all pouty about Matt having not proposed to her yet, which gets annoying really really fast. Especially watching the two crawl all over each other, *grumble* So I lock myself up in my room, continue my frustration with the PA game, figure out why I can’t figure out what to do. Give up on that, talk to a few peoples on MSN but then they all go to bed, and I’m wandering around the lonely internets until I will pass out some hours from now. Frustrating…

I think a lot of my frustrations are leading from not having anywhere to move up to in my job (that’s the problem with starting at the top, nowhere else to go), school progressing at a snail’s pace, sometimes wondering if it will ever finish. Only making tiny bits of progress picking away at my debts bit by bit, and only a never ending line up of lack luster games to waste my time on. I think I need a goal or something within reach I can shoot for or achieve, and it’s hard coming up with something… or a good ol’ fashion adventure would be nice to… or maybe a vacation. The only problem with taking a vacation, after it’s over, you have to come back to all the crap you left behind…

I suppose I could always run off to South America and search for treasure or some crap like that… but then I wouldn’t have ‘ze internets! Or maybe it’s time to get some happy pills

Science Center

So this morning I drug Rebekkah off to the Arizona Science Center for our second date. First I went and picked up Rebekkah at her secret lair… actually her parents house, where I briefly met her mother, though she didn’t interrogate me, so I guess I wasn’t too scary looking, and after the usual bit of drive safely, she handed over her daughter to me without much trouble. Which I suppose was good.

Then we drove off to downtown phoenix, and I had to poke Rebekkah a few times to talk, yes I did poke her, and I will poke her again if she goes quiet We went in, got tickets to a planetarium show, and began walking around. The science center was a lot smaller than I was expecting, yeah there are four floors, but most of the space is taken up by the IMAX and planetarium, then they have two big chunks taken up by the special exhibits that you have to pay extra for, and that ends up leaving not much space left. I think there were about 10 public exhibits, each one has a small schmorgesborg of displays all retaining to the general theme.

I think we had the most fun in the physics thingy place where you could maker paper airplanes and play with blocks, and also in the weather area. They have this really neat show where as a movie plays showing different weather phenomenas the wind blows when it’s windy, a light flashes when there’s lightning, the ground shakes when there’s an earthquake, and baking lights heat you when lava flows by, it’s a really neat experience.

After a bit of wandering, it was time for the Planetarium, so we headed down there and wow, just wow, there planetarium is amazing. The Astronomer guy said that it was the first science center in the world to have a NanoSeam dome. The thing is insanely sweet, it is nearly impossible to see the dome, it looks like you’re looking out at a flat surface, and it is wickedly awesome graphics. Very very very slick, the entire time I kept on thinking how awesome it would be to play some video games on this thing.

During the presentation, the Astronomer decided he would pick on me as I was hiding on the top because there was a planet in the Leo constellation, and luckily I was smart enough to know that planets are stars that don’t blink. Then I got in trouble for guessing said planet was Pluto, since Pluto *isn’t* a planet anymore! *gasp* Turns out it was Saturn, which was neat I guess.

After the planetarium, we explored the rest of the science center, wrapping things up with a rather unimpressive exhibit on the top about the sun, then headed off to the car. Rebekkah was rather quiet the whole time she admitted to not getting much sleep the night before, and I realized we need to go out in the evenings, since we’re both night owls, and we both stay up really late. I think a movie is in order for date #3, if Rebekkah is willing of course *nudge* *nudge* and I can probably snatch a couple passes from Keri if I’m nice to her.

I met a girl…

A good blog to post about today, as I… *proud* went on a date today (hurray!) with a lovely young lady Rebekakak… I mean Rebekkah, with a lotta k’s. She already discovered my blog, seeing as I met her online, and she googled me to make sure I wasn’t a crazed homicidal murderer, so she knows all about my digital life right off the start. Hi Rebekkah! *wave*

I met her a little over a week ago over on the Milk in the Pantry Forums I post over there since I’m a big fan of Parallel Dementia and in a topic about how the sun is evil, I noticed she lived in Phoenix. I send her some pm’s, we talk a bit, I get myself a bit of courage and say ‘what the heck’ and ask her out to lunch, she goes off and googles my identity, says yes, and I get to have lunch with nice, although a little crazy, girl (not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

We went down over to the Ahwatukee Town Marketplace thingy, by a movie theater, and had lunch at this nice barbecue place that we thought was Mexican, but really wasn’t. And then just sort of wandered around the shops, and talked, a lot. I quite enjoyed it, and hopefully, I didn’t do too bad of a job. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a date, and I’m a bit rusty, it turns out Rebekkah hasn’t exactly been dating a lot herself either, so we just sorta fumbled along together.

And I lined up a date for Monday, going to try and sneak off to the Arizona Science Center with her for the day, should be most excellent.

More temp pharmacists, and a funny pharmacy joke…

So today we got another Temp pharmacist *groan* todays was pretty useless. The only thing he did was 4 point and visual verify and count prescriptions. He wouldn’t pull prescriptions to fill, but if they were laying there with the labels already printed out, he would count them then visual verify them… so I pretty much got to run the pharmacy all by myself today, *lots* of fun *groan* Best part is when there was nothing for him to do as far as he was concerned he would just sort of hover by me, as if wanting me to do something for him, but would never say anything, got kinda annoying, especially when I had to deal with one person in drive-thru, two in pick up, one in drop off, and one guy who I needed to call around to find him some Androgel that nobody had in stock :S

However, the pharmacist did share with me a pretty good joke that almost made up for his crappy performance… almost.

So there’s a pharmacist that works near the beach in California, it was during the summer, and the local kids with too much time on their hands of course like to hang out on the beach. One of the things the rebellious kids do is smoke, since like I said, they have too much time on their hands. But the wet misty beach isn’t exactly good storage condition for cigarettes, so they would put their cigs in condoms to keep them dry.

So it was this really meek girl’s turn to get condoms for the group, and she didn’t know very much about condoms, so she went to the pharmacy and asked the pharmacist and very softly she says, “can I get some Trojans?”

There are of course lots of different types and sizes of condoms, so the Pharmacist asks first off, what size do you need? They come in size 3, 6, 9, 12…”

“Uhm…” the girl replies meekly, “I need one big enough to fit a camel”

Holidays suck!

Really, they do. Sure yeah, you get a day off and all that, but the day after the holiday sucks. Especially when you get dumped with more work than you would have had have you just worked the damn holiday. We almost hit 200 scripts today, which for our staff is huge…

Anyway, of course with so many *happy* customers today, there had to be one crazy person in the bunch, story time!

So I’m busy typing in scripts at the computer, Richard and Jay are trying hard to catch up on the fill que. This lady wanders up to the pickup area walking around while gabbing on her phone. We’re all busy, and while I’m sure she’s here to pick up a prescription, she isn’t exactly trying to get anybody’s attention. After I finish up the scripts I’m typing in, she’s still wandering back and forth talking on the phone, I decide to go ahead and forgo the never enforced no cell phone policy and ask her if she needs some help. She gives me her name, I get he prescription for her, politely, and check her out. Meanwhile her daughter is playing with my pen. As she turns to leave, without saying anything, and not acting in a mean manner, I take the pen from the girl’s hand and place it on the counter. This action seems to set off the woman, as she snaps at me, “What did you do that for?”
I politely reply, “I don’t want my pen accidentally walking off.” to which she replies with some terse response about me needing to learn about customer service then stalks off.

Jay and Richard laugh it off when I tell them about the events, and then we go back to work. Then during my break while I’m getting a lunchable at customer service (which doubles as the fast check out line) the lady who works there, whom I would consider friendly towards me, informed me that said lady was ranting about me having such horrible customer service, and making her wait for hours just standing at the pickup window while I just stood around doing nothing. I roll my eyes. Luckily it seems she was too important to wait for a manager to file a proper complaint, so I guess I’m off the hook, as I really don’t look forward to those bloody ‘talks’ when a deranged customer decides to drag a manager into the picture…

Anyway… other than that, the day was hectic, but went well. Best of all time went by fast since I wasn’t sitting around staring at the wall (like I was on Sunday, yikes, that day sucked!) Another temp on Wednesday, hope they don’t suck. And wishing my Pharmacists didn’t take vacations… ah well…

Workin’ overtime…

Well, while everybody else gets to enjoy a nice 3 day weekend, I’m going to be working my ass off… awesome… Today I agreed to open up at another store, so I get to work 8-4:30 there, then finish off the night with a 5-9 shift at my store. Tomorrow is my usual 9-6 shift, then Sunday I’m covering for Richard who wanted a 3 day weekend, so I’m pulling in 11-5 too… 28 hours for this holiday weekend, woohoo! Ah well, I’ll be making about $400 in 3 days, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much… will pay for a few bills, and at least I have Monday off, since the pharmacies are closed that day, woo, payed holiday!

See you guys when I wake up out of my sleep deprived comma Monday afternoon

ice cream and temp pharmacists

So… going into today I was expecting a bit of a disaster when I came in. Richard + Temp pharmacists sounds like a disaster to me. Why are temp pharmacists so bad? Well… mainly because most of the time they flat out don’t care. Why the hell should they give a shit about helping out the customers, they’re not going to be there tomorrow to face the consequences. Yeah sure if they get really bad they’ll get in trouble with their agency, but all they have to do is just barely enough to get people their pills… eventually… this makes life a bit of a bitch for us techs stuck with a temp. Oh and then usually they don’t know the system very well… if at all… and you end up having to baby sit them the whole time telling them how to do their damn job. (Lot’s of fun!)

To my great surprise (and relief!) the temp today was quite good, in fact he was really really good. According to him he almost exclusively works in Wal-Marts, so he knows our system really well, and he was really quite productive. Also it was a bit on the slow side today, so we didn’t really have much work to do. Only had two sangs really, once at around 3 when we had about 6 people all decide to pick up their prescriptions at the same time, and then when I had to take my mandatory break and I left the OTC manager on the pharmacy register… that’s when I came back to a mess. There were about 6 prescriptions sitting there waiting for me to drop when I got back… awesome… Luckily me and the pharmacist were able to plow through them pretty quickly once the customers left us along long enough to get some work done. And then when it got slow, instead of sitting in the corner gabbing on the phone or reading a book/magazine/paper he instead helps me unclog the vacuum cleaner (something I’ve been needing to do for a while) and the he proceeds to vacuum our floor! This guy, is definitely a keeper, wish we could use him whenever we need a temp, but sadly, I highly doubt I’ll see him again in a looong while….

On a neat side note, one of the customers gave me an ice cream sandwich today. Nice older guy was picking up some meds when he got a call from his wife who asked him to grab some ice cream sandwiches. He asked if he could go run and get them real fast to which I jokingly replied, ’sure if I can have on.’ (something I joke about sometimes with the customers when they ask if they can pay for goodies at the pharmacy counter with their prescriptions.) So he runs off and grabs some, comes back, and already has a sandwich out of the box and hands it to me before he pays. I try to politely decline, but he insists, at which point I take it, thank him a couple times, and send him on his way. Stuff it in the “freezer” (colder part on the top of the mini fridge) and then enjoy it once it slowed down. Was really nice of the guy, and really made my day.

Then I come home and watch House on the DVR and get all teary eyed as they kill off one of the characters